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Holster was on his knees, eyes watering and still trying to deal with the extreme pain in his nose. The pain was so intense he could hardly think of anything else. After what seemed like several minutes he looked up to see Kipper still standing in the same place, just looking at him.

“What the hell was that…” Holster trailed off.

There was something about the look in Kipper’s eye that made him stop talking. He wasn’t sure what it was but he knew he couldn’t say everything he was thinking.

“While you were messing with the ninjas I was actually doing something about our situation. I punched you to hopefully distract our captures and or that woman in leather long enough we could talk undiscovered.” Kipper was speaking quickly and quietly.

Holster thought a moment and then nodded.

“What have you learned?” he asked at last.

“That we’re under heavy sedation and part of some kind of experiment. There’s some kind of equipment over our eyes manipulating what we see and feel in our unconscious states.”

At first Holster only stared and Kipper. Then slowly he started to ask questions. The obvious one was about how he had learned all of this and how the two of them were able to communicate as they were. At one point even wondering if Kipper was in fact some portion of his imagination. This was eventually dismissed as unlikely given the pain in his nose and the apparent lack of any interruptions for what obviously an unplanned event.

Kipper answered all of Holster’s questions as quickly as possible and as best he could. The explanation of the how they were communicating seemed glossed over some how. The explanation was something about finding how the equipment worked and using that to cross over between while tricking the machinery.

Kipper went on to explain that he had also had an encounter from a group of seeming adversaries but had realized they posed no real threat. Using this he had captured one and willed himself to take control of it and learn as much information from it as he could. Using this figure as kind of conduit he then projected himself into Holster’s mind. In a split decision to demonstrate he was real he decided to punch Holster in the nose.

The question then became what they were to do at this point. How were they going to escape? Was that even possible?

These were the questions on both their minds just as a wave of pain hit both of them square in the frontal lobe. Holster and Kipper both screamed in agony and were driven once again to their knees. As the pain subsided their surroundings began to change at first then started to subside.

As Holster opened his and started to gain consiousness he could sense someone in the room with him. He could also feel the large heavy contraption covering up his eyes. With an effort he started to move his hands an arms and managed to reach up and take it off his face, letting it fall to the floor.

He took a moment to let his eyes adjust. Some how he knew the room he was in was flooded with light and he was right: really bright and immediately above his head, shining into his eyes. He squinted and finally started to focus in. He started to look around at the room.

It was bare except for the steril exam table he was laying on. The walls were completely white, as was the floor. As tried to sit up he noticed large mirror right in front of him. That’s when he noticed his head had been shaved and he had what looked like electric diodes with sunction cups attached to various places on his head. He reach up and started yanking them out.

It was about this time he noticed except for a generously placed towel he was completely naked. Although why his captures had bothered with that he didn’t know. After all, it was fairly obvious he and Kipper were ntohing more than lab rats to these people.

Thankful at any rate he finished sitting up and swung his legs around to one side of the table. Carefully taking the towel and wraping it around him stood on the sterril tile floor and started to wonder what he was going to do now and where Kipper was.

No sooner had he begun to think about this he heard a large crash coming from a wall to his left. This was followed by one or possibly two load but muffled voices which was fololowed by still more crashes and finally a sound of a lot of glass breaking.

Then silence. Holster sat in the room, straining as much as he could to hear something, anything else from the other side of any wall if not the wall where the sound had come from. Finally a portion of the wall wall where the sound had come from swung open silently. It was amazing to Holster: never had he seen a door designed into a wall in such a seemless way.

From the other side of the wall Kipper stepped forward dressed similarly with a towel around his waist and a shaved head. Holster was half expecting him to punch him in the nose again.

Kipper was immediately followed by the woman from the subway tunnel dressed in the same tight leather.

“Kipper, what is going here? What was all the noise? Also, where the hell are we?!” Holster could hardly contain the tone of his voice.

“Holster relax, I’m taking care of it. This is Mavaria from the subway tunnel. We were just…having an aggressive negotiation. It took some time but she has agreed to get us out of here. She does have a price but I think we can live with it. I’ll explain later. For now we have to get out of here before any alarams are raised.” Kipper explained.

Holster only staired at the two of them, dumb founded. Of all the gall and nerve of this set of actions. He was quite literally struck for words.

“What do you mean…” he began, “you reach a deaa…” he started again. The words were not coming.

“We really don’t have time for this, er, subject. We have to go. Follow me and we will get your clothes back.” Mavaria spoke in a neutral but strong tone.

“Hold on a moment!!” Holster had suddenly found his words again, “I don’t think we can trust her. Who is to say she won’t just take us to straight to some other lab? How do we know this isn’t part of some other experiment? Or a further portion of the same experiment? Have you thought of that Kipper?” Holster was turning visibly red in the face, clearly upset.

“Holster, we don’t have time for this. We have to trust her long enough to get out of here. Besides, I think the deal I made is incentive enough to keep her honest.” Kipper explained back.

Mavaria only watched this interaction calmly without saying a word. If her plan didn’t work out she would pay most dearly for these actions. But for now she had to keep he plans to herself and she knew it was the best course of action.

“Fine,” Holster said at least, “get us to some clothes. Preferably ours. And no more of that ‘subject’ stuff. Our names are just fine if you can managed it. Mavaria.” He did his best to add a tinge of sarcasm to that last bit though he was clearly still intimidated by her.

Mavaria said nothing but managed a menacing glare at him. She pulled out a science fiction looking remote from an apparently high capacity utility belt attached to her back and started pushing buttons on it. The mirror in the room slid up and the rest of the wall silently slid apart, creating a doorway. She walked through the newly created doorway without saying anything.

Holster and Kipper followed behind her. On the other side of the mirror was a small control room with a control panel and a several monitors Holster and Kipper could only assume were used for keeping track of vitals and observing the “subjects” as Mavaria called them.

She lead them out of the control into a long corridor, also sterile, white and with bright harsh lightly. All the walls seemed to blend seemlessly into the floor and ceiling but that did not mean there were no doors as Holster and Kipper and recently learned. Neither one of them could see any kind of servalance or cameras of any sort either. Both of them also knew this most likely didn’t really mean there was no security in place as well.

As Holster and Kipper followed Mavaria down the hall Holster noticed whatever door they had come out of had gone back to completely blended into the wall. That was it then. If Mavaria wanted to double cross them they would have no recourse. But then that was just as true back in the experiment room with the cold hard sterile tables.

After what really seemed like too long Mavaria stopped at a seeminly random place. She touched a wall to her right in several places and then left her palm on it for a few seconds. A breif blue light came out from behind her hand and then a door silently appeared. This time Holster and Kipper didn’t see or hear how it had appeared, it was just kind of there.

She walked in to the waiting room out of the hall without a word and Holster and Kipper followed her silently.

The room appeared to be some kind of locker room, or at least the closest equivalent this place could offer. At the far end of the room, folded neatly on a bench, was Holster and Kipper’s clothes along with their weapons apparently unmolested.  ¶ 8:01 PM